Athens, Ga. – University System of Georgia Chancellor Erroll B. Davis Jr. recently recognized three UGA teams and two individual staff members with customer service awards for going “above and beyond” their normal job responsibilities in consistently demonstrating customer service excellence. The UGA honorees were selected from a pool of more than 275 nominations for teams, individuals, and institutions for the Chancellor’s Annual Customer Service Awards.
UGA claimed top honors in the Customer Service Excellence-Individual category, with the gold award going to LeAnne Fouche, North Deck parking services monitor, and the bronze award going to Glenda Owens, grants accounting specialist III.
The Food Services Orientation Team, with team leader Chef Darnell Tate, won bronze for Customer Service Excellence-Team, and the University Health Center Practice Redesign Team, with team leaders Dr. Jean Chin and Dr. Ron Forehand, won the silver award for Outstanding Customer Service Improvement Initiative. In addition, the Newspaper Digitization Team, a University System of Georgia initiative led by Ed Johnson and Toby Graham and including several staff members from the University Libraries, won gold for Outstanding Customer Service Improvement Initiative.
“Providing good customer service is a fundamental component of what we do at UGA,” said Senior Vice President of Finance and Administration Tim Burgess, who has been designated as the university’s customer service champion. “We are always striving to improve our operations so that we provide the best support possible for the overall learning experience. These honors attest to our continuing success in that effort.”
Individual winner Fouche is well known by North Campus parking patrons and calls hundreds of them by name. Her nominators praised her personal commitment to make parking enjoyable and fun for customers, noting that she often dresses up for holidays or passes out special treats. According to her nomination, “Parking is often the first and last impression a visitor sees of the university. LeAnne contributes to the mission of the university by leaving a highly favorable impression upon visitors. Her attitude is infectious, and her peers strive to emulate her example.”
Similarly, Owens-the bronze winner-is heralded by her colleagues.
“She is widely known as someone who goes the extra mile to be courteous, helpful, accessible, responsive and knowledgeable,” reads her nomination. Owens was honored in the spring with the customer service award for UGA’s Finance and Administration division.
The award-winning Food Services Orientation Team hosts parents and students at each meal during orientation and answers their questions about a variety of campus issues from meal plans to parking. Participation in UGA’s meal plan is completely voluntary, but Food Services has seen an increase in the participation of the meal plan as a direct result of the marketing efforts of the orientation hosts.
The University Health Center won a silver award in process improvement for streamlining access to medical care in response to concerns from students about wait times and continuity of care. The UHC team redesigned its clinical practice to allow same-day service to a student’s provider of choice. Students now have their own personal doctor and nurse team at the health center that they can contact by phone, e-mail or walk in to discuss their medical needs at any time.
The Newspaper Digitization Team was recognized for its success in providing Web access to selected Georgia historical newspapers. Many of the papers were made accessible only after they were digitized from microfilm by the Georgia Newspaper Project. Each newspaper archive provides newspaper page images that are full-text searchable and can be browsed by date. The initiative, supported by the Federal Library Science and Technology Act grant and administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Georgia Public Library Service, was achieved through the collaborative efforts of the Digital Library of Georgia, the GALILEO team, and Georgia HomePLACE.
